


Ultimate Self Destruction, or Destruction of the Ultimate Self

by Kgraces



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Strider Brothers, The Homestuck Epilogues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 21:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21278366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kgraces/pseuds/Kgraces
Summary: In which Dirk knows something's wrong and actively fights to stay a good person.An alternate take on Ultimate Dirk





	Ultimate Self Destruction, or Destruction of the Ultimate Self

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you are completely fucked. You’ve known for years now that the Heart aspect is exhausting; being constantly surrounded by splinters of your own personality, all your flaws glaring back at you, weighs down your sense of self. Your splinters are a part of you, sure, but you’ve been careful to keep them at a distance, because letting them affect how you think is a surefire way to get lost in your own self endlessly. Each one has lived its own experiences, has its own perspective on life. You’d prefer to keep your own opinions, thank you very much. Despite having the ability to fracture yourself, (destroyer of soul, indeed) you’ve never really wanted to let your splinters interfere with your primary self. You’ve learned over and over again that getting out of your head, away from your splinters, is the only way to keep it sane. But being aware of yet distanced from your splinters and versions of yourself from alternate timelines is far, far different from integrating with them.

That’s why, the first time it happens, it catches you so off guard. Your splinters, your alternate selves, they’ve always been somewhere just out of reach - something you’re always aware of and connected to but not co-conscious with. So when memories that aren’t your own but are unmistakably yours flood into your mind, you’re surprised. You remember fading into static, in the alternate timeline where almost all of your friends died, and you suddenly feel sick. The moment passes, and you become aware of a quiet sort of echo to your own thoughts. It’s odd, but you don’t think much of it, at first.

It doesn’t stop there, though. The memories keep coming, one splinter at a time. It’s not just the memories, though. Each time, a new voice joins the cacophony in your mind. Your splinters are all conscious, all aware of your surroundings, forming opinions, choosing actions, all rattling around in your skull. You manage it fine most of the time, you suppose. You’re pretty sure the Dirk making most of your decisions is the one who was always _you_, at least.

You realize you’re totally screwed the day _his_ memories come back to you. You can recall the Texan heat, the feeling of concrete underneath your shoes, and the glint of the cold steel of your katana as you lower it at Dave’s throat. You realize with a cold jolt that you’re looking at him through the eyes of someone you’ve only ever heard awful things about. The wrench in your hands rattles to the floor of your workshop, and you curl in on yourself. You and Dave had had conversations about his Bro, the twisted, pathetic excuse for a guardian he was to him, but you’d never known just how awful he was. Dave is a good guy, and from his Bro’s memories, he was a sweet little kid. The part of you that’s still completely you can’t fathom how anyone could hurt Dave. That part of you is disgusted to know that you know now every single one of his motivations. Sure, some of his schemes and manipulations started off with decent intentions, but you can’t justify, could never justify, what he’s done. Even knowing his thought processes makes you wish you could just totally erase his existence altogether. You can’t risk it, though. Allowing your personality to merge with his is a terrifying concept that you never want to even think about. You don’t want to become him.

Your fingers close around your phone and are hovering over Dave’s contact info, itching to send him a text. You’re not sure what words you’d find yourself typing though - a plea for forgiveness or some sort of mind game? You know he was always screwing with Dave’s head, hoping to catch him off guard. You nearly toss your phone across the workshop before you bury your face in your hands. You’re officially a hot mess, too afraid of your nastier attributes to allow yourself to form one stable personality.

In typical fashion, you don’t let yourself cope in healthy ways. What else would you do when you’re feeling crushed under the guilt of what various splinters of yourself have done, what you know you’re capable of, than punish yourself by spending time with the one person you hate most? So, you isolate yourself. You keep your phone off for weeks and throw yourself into your latest project: a self-regulating watering system you’ve been working on for Jade’s garden. You know it’s just an effort to ignore the painful fracturing pieces of yourself coming together in all the wrong ways, but the final product is nice, at least.

Part of you just wants your splinters to shut up - to integrate fully to form one personality. The other part of you doesn’t want any part of you to become like him, or any of the others like him. And so you refuse and suppress the thoughts of all your other selves clamoring to be heard above your thoughts. You don’t know if this makes you more or less splintered than you were before, with all of those alternate Dirks coming together in both memory and your access to them. Either way, your head hurts.

It takes two weeks for your friends to get fed up with your silent treatment. Unsurprisingly, they send Dave as their first point of contact with you. And, fuck, even just hearing him call out to you is making you panic a little. Dave raps his knuckles against the door of your workshop, shouting your name in an increasingly vexed tone, and you contemplate ignoring him, out of guilt or shame, you can’t say, when he sighs.

“Remind me later to replace your door,” you hear him say. You only have a second to think, _wait, what the fuck?_ before he’s kicked the door in, and suddenly you can feel his eyes on you.

You know you look like a mess, but you feel too tired to care. Dave, however, seems to care quite a bit. He crosses the room in a few strides, and even though his shades obscure his expression somewhat, you can tell by the furrow of his brow that he’s decidedly not happy.

“What the fuck, Dirk?” Is Dave’s way of greeting you. He folds his arms, unimpressed. You lean against the table behind you, sharp corner digging into your hip, and you hesitate. The words catch in your throat. Shit, you don’t know if you should tell him. In one smooth motion, you take off your shades and pinch the bridge of your nose between your eyes with your other hand. You want more time to think, but at the same time, you just want to stop thinking for a minute.

“I’m exhausted,” is all you can muster. Your voice is rough from disuse. Dave raises a brow, and you can tell that he’s trying to figure you out. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” You try to keep your tone kind, as distant from his Bro as you could possibly be.

“Are you back on that self-deprecating, depressed bullshit again?” Dave asks, frowning. “Because we’ve talked about this, dude, and you know we—”

“No,” you interrupt. “God, I wish it were only that.” You run a hand through your already disheveled hair. You sink back into your own cluttered thoughts.

“Alright,” Dave says after waiting for you to speak but getting nothing in return. “Let’s go back to your place. We’ll order some food from that diner Roxy’s always raving about and see if we can figure out whatever the hell is going on with you.” He doesn’t wait for you to follow him; he just turns around and leaves, expectant. You really don’t want to discuss this with him, but you’re so sick of being alone with yourself that you follow.

You’re silent as Dave drags you to the diner, orders dinner, and walks with you back to your home. You unlock the door, and the two of you move to your couch. Dave patiently waits for you to start talking as he passes out the take-out boxes and plastic utensils. You study him for a moment, still searching for words, still deciding how much you want to tell him. He sighs when he catches your gaze and moves to take off his shades, setting them on the coffee table in front of you. He leans back against the cushions of the couch, and you can now see every nuance in his expression. Your eyes drift to his right arm. A scar winds from the top of his shoulder to the back of his elbow, and you recognize it instantly. It’s as good a place to start as any.

“You got that scar when you were twelve,” you say, jerking your chin at the mark. “Lil’ Cal startled you, and you jumped back when you should’ve dodged to the side.” You notice that your voice sounds just a bit gruffer, and your drawl is more pronounced when you speak.

Dave drops his fork.

“Dirk, what the fuck?” He says, eyes wide and as sad as they are startled. “How do you know that?” You know your smile comes across as more of a grimace as you tap your index finger against your temple.

“Fucker’s in my head,” you explain. “They all are—all of my alternate selves. I don’t know how or why, but I think they’re all trying to form one, Ultimate Dirk.” Dave rolls his eyes at your phrasing, but you can see the thinly veiled concern in his expression. “So, they’re all trying to merge together, but that’s obviously not ideal.”

“What, because you don’t want to be a puppet obsessed jackass?” Dave asks. “Sorry to break it to you, dude, but you kind of already are.”

“Fuck off,” you say without any real heat. “But seriously,” You stab at your meal with your fork, not meeting his eyes. “What if the combination of all the different versions of myself isn’t someone I’d like? The fucked up, awful versions of myself might outweigh the ones who just want what’s best for our friends.”

“So you’ve been avoiding all of us because you think we won’t like you anymore?” Dave arches a brow at you, unimpressed.

“Like you’d actually want to be around your Bro,” you snap back. “Dave, he’s literally in my head right now. I can tune into his thoughts if I really tried to, and if I let my control slip enough, he could potentially become the one talking to you right now instead of me.” You sigh and run a hand through your hair. “Man, I thought my head was screwed up enough before all of this shit started.”

“Dude, chill,” Dave says, hands raised in a placating gesture. He shrugs, and your eyes wander back to that scar on his shoulder. “I get that you’re worried, and like, if all of the you’s converge and you aren’t _you_ anymore, that would really suck, but I don’t think isolating yourself is the answer.”

“I’m trying to sort through all this shit, Dave,” you argue. “It’s kind of hard to hold a proper fucking conversation when your head feels like its splitting apart.” You groan and press the heels of your palms against your eyes. Dave hums, and you feel his elbow knock into your ribs.

“It’ll be okay,” he says. “Can’t your Heart powers help at all?”

“Do you really think I should destroy aspects of my own soul?” You ask dryly.

“If it’s bothering you this much, then yeah,” Dave admits. He looks sheepish. “I don’t want my bro to be worried he’s going to, well, become anything like my Bro.” You hesitate, watching his face for signs of insincerity, but you find none.

“I’m not certain it’s a very good plan,” you finally say. “But, I suppose I can think about it.” You catch his eye again and add, “And stop ignoring everyone.” The corners of Dave’s mouth lift, and you let out a sigh, half relieved, half exasperated. You lean over and ruffle his hair.

“Just promise me something, dude,” Dave says, swatting at your hand. He looks more at ease now that you’ve explained what’s wrong and promised to work on a solution, far-fetched as it might be. “Don’t worry if using your powers doesn’t work. We’ll help you figure something out.” You nod, already sinking back into your thoughts.

Dave focuses his attention back onto his meal, and the two of you eat in silence for a time. He finally stands up and retrieves his shades, sliding them back on in a fluid motion. You walk with him back to the front door when he does something that catches you off guard—even though it’s characteristic of how the two of you interact; he pulls you into a hug. It’s brief, but it feels like Dave is clinging to you as tightly as he can. You smile and pat his arm when he pulls back, and he returns your slight grin with an easy one of his own.

“Don’t disappear on us again,” he says, tone light. “Don’t want to drag your ass back to the world of people who aren’t self-obsessed dumbasses yet again.” He waves and turns to leave. You watch him go with a familiar heavy feeling settling on your chest.

It’s time to get to work.

You lock yourself in your room and sit cross-legged on the messy pile of blankets. Closing your eyes, you let yourself drift, similar to how you would when you were awake on Derse and Earth simultaneously. For the first time in years, you call on your Heart powers, and you focus them internally. You rifle through the vast number of consciousnesses rattling around in your brain, searching for one in particular. He’s not hard to find, and you’re quick to latch onto that part of your fractured soul.

When you open your eyes, you aren’t looking at your room. Instead, you see the ocean. You’re sitting on the roof of your old apartment—the one you’d left behind on the Land of Tombs and Krypton—back from before the game. You look around and spot him. He’s leaning against one of the broken air conditioning units, studying you with an unreadable expression.

“Hey,” Dave’s Bro says simply. His tone is flat. You stand and move over to him with an equal measure of caution and determination. He’s dangerous; you know this, but you’re the bigger threat here.

“I figured it would be apt to have a face-to-face conversation,” you reply. “I have a bone to pick with you.” His responding grin is crooked and ugly. You know firsthand that it means he’s not pleased, but you continue anyways. You have the upper hand here, and you both know it. You curl your fingers into a fist, and arcs of magenta lightning flicker to life. “You fucked up.” You say. “You were an asshole to my brother, and for that, you’re going to be the first to go.”

Dave’s Bro shrugs. To anyone else, it would look like an easy movement, but you know it’s calculated. Everything this guy does is carefully crafted. You’re only partially glad you can see past his bullshit and through to the awful person underneath. You hate that you could’ve wound up like him; he’s all of your worst flaws kept unchecked, magnified and twisted into this monster masquerading as a person.

“Kid’s still alive, isn’t he?” He asks, staring you down with a meticulously blank expression. “Reckon he’s got me to thank for that, yeah?” You grit your teeth and bite back a snarl.

“Shut the fuck up,” you snap, voice cold and terribly angry. You hardly recognize it. You clench your fists tighter, barely aware of the bite of your nails into your palms. “You should be begging for his forgiveness, you abusive sack of shit.” You shrug. “Oh well, at least if you won’t apologize for how you treated him, I can still claim retribution.” Your smile is every bit as awful as you know this man has made Dave feel. Your lungs fill not with the salty sea-air but with righteous wrath.

You finally release your tenuous grip on your powers and feel the destructive energy flow out of you. Dave’s Bro lets his expression slip for a split second, and you relish in the fear there before he reigns it back in. He lunges for a katana that isn’t there, movements jerky in desperation. He’s scared to not exist, but you can’t find it within yourself to care. The lightning washes over him, and in mere moments, you’re alone again.

You sigh and open your eyes, back in your bedroom once more. You collapse back onto your pillows, reaching for your phone. You pull up Dave’s contact and send a quick text.

_He’s gone._

You close your eyes, exhausted from the effort of purposefully tearing your own soul apart. You suppose you could compare it to fighting off a nasty cold, working hard to destroy the parts of yourself that shouldn’t be there. Everything about you is tired and achy, but for the first time in a long while, you feel hopeful. Dave doesn’t reply before you’ve given in to the feeling and passed out. Your sleep is blissfully dreamless.

It’s the first time your mind has been quiet since this whole ordeal began.


End file.
